Normally, the rent relation involved three different social groups: landlords (house owners), caretakers or managers, and tenants. Nagaya managers, known as oya (the name was changed to jisho-sahainin, or "house agent," in the early Meiji period), were responsible for managing a building and renting it out to tenants. Since the Edo period, the oya exercised a broad range of powers, receiving in exchange for his duties a rent-free room (one "dwelling") which was usually located at the front entrance of the building. By virtue of his authority, the oya played a leading role in organizing the nagaya “community” and, in effect, ruled over it, going so far as to intervene in the private affairs of individual tenants when he thought necessary.